Australia

May 30, 2009

For a country where education constitutes its third largest
export industry, it would seem self-defeating to treat hate attacks against
foreign students with apathy. Australia has witnessed a spate of what seems
like racially charged attacks against Indian students in recent weeks. In
Melbourne in particular, where there are some 35,000 Indian students, after
reports of “curry bashing” incidents recently, all that the local police could come up
with was a piece of advice that told Indian students not to speak “loudly” in
their native tongues and not to flaunt their iPods and laptops.

In the past few days, there have been more attacks in
Melbourne and in two particular cases students were wounded grievously. In
fact, one of them, Shravan Kumar, is battling for his life. With the emergence of Australia as a
preferred destination for higher education in the aftermath of 9/11 and
restrictions in the United States, the country down under runs the serious risk
of losing out on an important source of revenues. According to The Australian
newspaper Australia earned $ 15.5 billion last year from a total of 430,000 students.
Of these, between 80,000 and 90,000 are Indian students. I would think that Australia
can do a little more that tell the Indian students not to speak in their native
languages or flaunt their gadgets.

In a related development India’s most admired actor Amitabh
Bachchan says he is “faced with a dilemma of some intense proportions” over
whether or not to accept an honorary doctorate from the Queensland University
of Technology, Brisbane in Australia in the midst of such attacks. Many Indian news
websites treated this as an important enough story to either lead the day with
on Saturday or give it a prominent mention. I would not like to debate the
merit of treating this story so prominently. While the media made it out as if
Bachchan had turned down the doctorate, reading Bachchan’s popular blog (http://bigb.bigadda.com/) it seemed a
little less certain.

In seeking his readers’ opinion on what to do, Bachchan
wrote, “I mean no disrespect to the Institution that honors me, but under the
present circumstances, where citizens of my own country are subjected to such
acts of inhuman horror, my conscience does not permit me to accept this
decoration from a country that perpetrates such indignity to my fellow
countrymen. And here is where I need your inputs. Am I right in thinking so.
And if yes then is my act of refusing the honor justified or not. I shall put
this up as my POLL question and shall feel obliged if EF (extended family) can
indicate to me their opinion, for me to be able to take the correct action.”

The rise of India as one of the world’s two fastest growing
economies gives the country considerable leverage while dealing with issues
such as overt or subtle racism against its own citizens around the world. It is
arguable whether three decades ago India’s strong expression of outrage against
such attacks would have prompted a serious response from Australia.

Meanwhile, Baljinder Singh, a 25-year-old student who was
attacked in Melbourne, was quoted by NDTV as saying, "My advice to every
Indian student now who wants to come to Australia is please don't come and
there's no life here."That’s the
kind of PR disaster that Australia needs to worry about if it wants to
continue to make money out of education.

P.S.: Amitabh Bachchan has since formally announced his decision not to accept the honorary doctorate.